"Computer activist Aaron H. Swartz committed suicide in New York City yesterday, Jan. 11, according to his uncle, Michael Wolf, in a comment to The Tech. Swartz was 26." Swartz was one of three co-creators of Reddit, worked on the RSS 1.0 specification at age 14, and so many other things. Swartz faced decades in prison for downloading a collection of JSTOR scientific articles. JSTOR dropped charges, but the US government pursued the case anyway, demanding fifty years in jail. Lawrence Lessig, one of his close friends: "Aaron had literally done nothing in his life 'to make money'. He was fortunate Reddit turned out as it did, but from his work building the RSS standard, to his work architecting Creative Commons, to his work liberating public records, to his work building a free public library, to his work supporting Change Congress/FixCongressFirst/Rootstrikers, and then Demand Progress, Aaron was always and only working for (at least his conception of) the public good. He was brilliant, and funny. A kid genius. A soul, a conscience, the source of a question I have asked myself a million times: What would Aaron think? That person is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying. I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don't get both, you don't deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you." Our sincere condolences to his family and friends. We've just lost one of the good guys.

Except when it's not. My little brother took his own life in a very violent and definite way just over seven years ago. We had no idea he was depressed, and while he was a very outgoing person, he certainly didn't do it seeking attention. After all, how would he be able to enjoy that attention (negative as it would have been) unless he survived? We think perhaps it was that he was in over his head with something deadly serious and saw no other way out, but we'll never really know.

I think you are confusing people who attempt to hurt themselves using less dangerous measures such as cutting or overdosing with truly suicidal people. Those former are the attention seekers. The ones who succeed, often violently, are running away from something much bigger than themselves. It may be a real or imagined monster, but either way they have lost all hope for going on with life.

Exactly... the part you quoted was a clear indication to me that the person you quoted was just making assumptions on the matter, without really knowing what depression is like. I know first-hand... I have been ripped apart by it. Mostly stabilized and more able to control/suppress it, but it can still strike back hard.

A person who talks about suicide and threatens to commit suicide may just be calling out for attention/help in their own way... but people who are silent about it are the ones most likely to do it. You'll just never know... because other than the way they act (which as you said can be virtually unnoticeable), people outside of them would probably never consider or notice a link. Until it's done, when it becomes a shock.

Someone who is serious about ending it all will not say a word. They know the only "help" they will get is psychiatrists trying to convince them to not do it, and if they have made up their mind, why would they want that? It will only slow them down or prevent them from doing what they are convinced that they want deep inside. No amount of sweet talking by anyone will change someone's mind it if that person is determined. And it can be incredibly difficult to change feelings that have become ingrained over time.

I think there are a lot of people who don't "get" depression... but when you've gone through it, there is no mistaking the extremely strong, negative feelings from waking to bedtime; an intense "sadness" that is so extreme that no explanation or word can really do it justice; "emptiness" in my opinion is a more fitting word, but even it can't explain it. To anyone who does not know what it's like... consider yourself lucky.

And deathshadow... don't fool yourself. A dead person does not want attention, and I seriously doubt anyone who is depressed to the point of suicide gives a damn about anything more in life, let alone attention. If you honestly think so, then you really don't know what you're talking about. Get back with us after you've gone through it and actually know what you're going on about... I bet your thought process will have made a near 180° turn by then.

I think it depends on the person. I've known cutters who hid it and used it as a form of release, and I've known some who used it for attention seeking. My point was that they weren't serious about killing themselves.